


congruence

by dragonsong (NekoAisu)



Series: Forgiven Yearning [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Ambiguous Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Angst, Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, Gender-Neutral Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Other, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Pining, canonical but still worthy of note
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-19 05:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22005916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/dragonsong
Summary: Looking from his tattered copy ofHeavenswardto the portal and back again, the Crystal Exarch sighs.They are no more a hero than he is a fool.
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Series: Forgiven Yearning [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1459639
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	congruence

**Author's Note:**

> me??????? sad and gay???????? how did u guess :0c

G’raha has read many accounts of the Warrior of Light’s exploits. It is still jarring to see them in person, many a year aged in countenance and even more so in health of mind and body, when all he reads is triumph. They snarl and snap and  _ sigh  _ with only the last of the three truly hurting him. He feels he is deserving of their anger and anxiety. That he would be the cause of such bone-deep fatigue… it is not a possibility he had quite entertained.

They are not quite how he remembers them and even less so how he reads of them—what with their heroism being a way of life rather than a simple act even when they drag their feet back to the Pendants only to depart after a mere bell of rest. How they do not strain to carry the weight of tomorrow and tomorrow on their shoulders with such virtuosity that he nearly mistakes the tremble in their hands for excitement and not terror. How he watches their eyes catch on drink in memory of a poisoning without choice vigilance but instead clear  _ paranoia— _ because they are unbelievably  _ real _ . 

The Exarch wonders if they have read any of the stories he has. Maybe they try to be like what everyone expects.  Maybe they preferred the outcome that snuffed them out early. Or maybe the accounts he keeps that include sightings of Primals summoned in their distorted image should be kept far from their hands, what with how fiercely they guard what of them they can keep private. G’raha fears them finding out through word of mouth and the not-so-tall-tales he shaped generations ago to keep hearts full of hope and children smiling. 

(He is guilty of so many things, least of all spilling secrets in the form of false folklore because they feel easier to swallow than his feelings. He knows the tale of a sleeping king being awoken by a travelling warrior is too thin a veneer to not be seen through at a glance, even if it has become a favorite amongst children and romantics alike.)

He listens to them mutter things about  _ this and not that  _ and how  _ Lyna needs to stop wearing holes in her boot soles,  _ all the while pacing and sorting through crafting materials as if the process is dictated by afterthought. They weave and work with leather and even hammer out some new mugs and bowls (where they keep these variable setups is unknown, his view from the Ocular only showing flashes of crystalline light and interference before they settle down to handle a new piece). 

He thinks it’s charming, even if they have a nasty furrow betwixt their brows. They care so much for everyone it is nearly impossible to not love them and he has always been a man of many vices. They are the greatest of them all.

He watches and listens and the guilt eats at him even when he says it is for their safety in the case the Light breaks loose once more. He watches and listens until their hands grind to a halt and they stare at the piece of half-drilled wood in their grip. It takes him a long moment before he realizes that they are  _ crying _ and that realization only comes at the tail end of a choked off sob.

He has done this to them.  _ Gods… _ this is all his fault.

_ What has he done? _

But what else can he do if not sit pretty and send them off on more errands and missions and fetch quests come morning? 

He made his grave and he would fain lie in it. T’would be more comfortable a bed than the bleached-out husk of the world threatening to drown him from beyond the Crystarium walls. 

With a sweep of his staff, the viewing portal fizzles out. He breathes in slowly, the air stale on his tongue, and holds it. Technically, he does not inherently  _ need _ to breathe. The crystal arcing outward from his arm is proof enough, spidering veins shimmering and stretching like skin even as they chill all that surrounds them, and he wonders if the pains he experiences from crystal slowly spreading through bone is anything like the Light they hold inside.

He should be watching them now, of all times. They are liable to lose their tenuous grasp on wholeness when emotions overwhelm them. Anyone would. He knows it is a fit of madness that made him place a hand on the Tower and demand its might. He hopes they are not driven to such desperation.

Puttering around, he nearly trips over a couple misplaced tomes moved out of storage. He stares at  _ Heavensward.  _ Shoulders drooping and ears following suit, he picks it up from the floor. 

_ This is no time for reading,  _ he tells himself, hands long since familiar with the cover tracing the worn down embossing. He flicks open to the note, something more personal than auspicious, and wonders what it is Count Edmont had seen of them to feel compelled to say, “In memoriam of my children, both of blood and of oath. May Halone guide you to her halls.”

That they were close enough to him to be considered family—and what sons had perished in the wake of the calamity? There are a good few pages left out between their storming of the Vault and Thordan’s demise, the original memoir bearing some carefully cut sections again after the initial sweep of Black Rose—is not something he would have guessed if hearing the stories by word of mouth. 

He knows the Warrior of Light died. He knows because he saw their grave and the pile of soulstones left behind because Hydaelyn herself had swept all of their aether back to her bosom to leave behind only what she could not grasp. Their grave is full of baubles. Half-finished crafts. Old tomes. The outfits Tataru made them over the years. Flags from city states and rebellions. The shattered bit of a katana nobody needs to name because it comes wrapped in cloth cut from a crown prince’s regalia. 

He had sifted through what was preserved and then─then he found their soulstones. Sitting in a small pile, the stones were tucked between a stubbornly shut music box and a few journals. They were in no way lonely, not a speck of dust to be seen, and whispered in tongues how he could simply take them in hand and Listen. They would tell him of the person he wishes to see. 

He did not. He refused to. Or, well, up to the point that the Tower shook with tremors and he allowed himself one solitary moment of weakness. 

He takes hold of the smooth, near pearlescent one whose perch on the top of the pile could not have been a coincidence, and watches as the Warrior of Light’s hands rest over his. They whisper in his ear, patient and diaphanous, with words that are no more sound than they are an  _ idea.  _ The transferring of energy, the fracturing of a whole, worlds and being made one so strongly that they would never shatter. 

Crystal had consumed him, that day, and he woke on the First with the blue of his arm having spilled from forearm to shoulder and past the bulwark of his heart and lungs. 

The memory  _ aches.  _ It eats at him even now, centuries down the line and in possession of his wits. He places  _ Heavensward  _ atop a pile of his favorites, sits down, and opens the portal again. 

Staring at the Warrior of Light, the last hope for a dying world, as they lay on the floor and cry softly into the wood… feels soothing. He looks to  _ Heavensward  _ again and then back to the portal. He sighs. His crystal arm seeps cold through his robes. 

They are no more a hero than he is a fool, but at least they can be incongruous together. 

**Author's Note:**

> [screeches quietly] i just want to do the unspeakable and Hold Hands with the exarch
> 
> hmu on:  
> tumblr | https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com/  
> twitter | twitter.com/FlamingAceKiri  
> discord | NekoAisu#7099


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